Engaging stakeholders to identify needs and barriers from a DSS
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A qualitative study to engage with stakeholders to identify needs and barriers to deployment of a collaborative mobile decision-support system aiming to help patients suffering from chronic diseases to self-manage their treatments
IRAS ID
226659
Contact name
Talya Porat
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
King's College London
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 8 months, 7 days
Research summary
This study aims to engage with different stakeholders to identify needs and barriers to the development of a collaborative mobile decision-support system to help patients suffering from chronic diseases with associated health conditions to self-manage their treatments.
As the population ages, the number of patients with multiple health conditions is increasing. These patients have complex needs and treating them effectively is one of the great challenges facing modern healthcare. Dealing with multiple health conditions present a wide range of confounding factors, such as unclear interaction between diseases, conflicting clinical practice guidelines, unnecessary duplication of diagnostic tests, inappropriate or incorrect medication, obstacles in continuity of care and confusing self-management advice.
Research has established that involving patients in the management of their own disease has long-term health benefits. Advances in sensor technology means that it is practical for patients to monitor a wide range of health and wellness data at home, including blood pressure, heart function and glucose levels, without direct supervision by medical personnel. Smart phone technologies enables the possibility of putting state-of-the-art intelligent decision-support systems into the hands of the general public.
This is the first study in a larger project named CONSULT (Collaborative mObile DecisioN Support for managing mULtiple morbidities) which is a 3-year project. The overall aim of CONSULT is to combine wireless "wellness" sensors with intelligent software running on mobile devices, to support patient decision making, and thus actively engage patients in managing their healthcare. Thus, to understand the needs from a decision-support system and assess user-centric barriers to its deployment, it is important to engage with different stakeholders, which is the basis of this qualitative study. This study will only elicit requirements and needs (qualitative feedback) from stakeholders, which will inform the design of the decision support system. Follow-up studies will test and evaluate the system itself, and will require new ethics application.
REC name
East Midlands - Nottingham 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/EM/0377
Date of REC Opinion
27 Sep 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion